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And 17 years later I did go to college.
十七年后，我真的上了大学。
But I naively chose a college that was almost as expensive as Stanford.
但是我很愚蠢的选择了一个几乎和你们斯坦福大学一样贵的学校。
And all of my working-class parents' savings were being spent on my college tuition.
我父母还处于蓝领阶层，他们几乎把所有积蓄都花在了我的学费上面。
After six months, I couldn't see the value in it.
在六个月后，我已经看不到其中的价值所在。
I had no idea what I wanted to do with my life and no idea how college was going to help me figure it out.
我不知道要怎么做，我也不知道大学能不能帮我找到答案。
And here I was spending all of the money my parents had saved their entire life.
而且在这里，我几乎花光了我父母这一辈子的全部积蓄。
So I decided to drop out and trust that it would all work out OK.
所以我决定要退学，我觉得这才是正确的选择。
It was pretty scary at the time, but looking back it was one of the best decisions I ever made.
我那时的确很害怕，不过现在看来，那应该是我人生中做得最正确的选择。
The minute I dropped out I could stop taking the required classes that didn't interest me, and begin dropping in on the ones that looked interesting.
在我做出退学决定的那一刻，我终于可以不必去读那些令我提不起丝毫兴趣的课程了，然后我可以去攻读那些我喜欢的课程了。
It wasn't all romantic.
不过那也不都是那么的浪漫。
I didn't have a dorm room, so I slept on the floor in friends' rooms.
我失去了我的宿舍，所以我只能睡在朋友房间的地板上。
I returned coke bottles for the five-cent deposits to buy food with, and I would walk the 7 miles across town every Sunday night to get one good meal a week at the Hare Krishna temple.
我又去捡五美分的可乐瓶了，仅仅是为了填饱肚子。每个星期天晚上，我会走7英里的路穿过波特兰市区去 Hare Krishna 神庙去吃顿好的。
I loved it.
我爱上了它。
And much of what I stumbled into by following my curiosity and intuition turned out to be priceless later on.
很多在这段跟随自己的好奇心和直觉度过的日子里学到的东西，后来都让我获益匪浅。
Let me give you one example.
我给你们举个例子。
Reed College at that time offered perhaps the best calligraphy instruction in the country.
雷德大学当时的书法课程大概是美国国内最好的了。
Throughout the campus every poster, every label on every drawer, was beautifully hand calligraphed.
校园里的每一幅海报，抽屉上的每一个标签，都是用漂亮的字体手写而成的。
Because I had dropped out and didn't have to take the normal classes.
因为我已经退学，用不着去上常规课。
I decided to take a calligraphy class to learn how to do this.
所以我决定去参加一门书法课，去学写字。
I learned about serif and san serif typefaces, about varying the amount of space between different letter combinations about what makes great typography great.
我学习 Serif 字体和 San Serif 字体，关于不同字母组合中间隙空间的变化，关于怎么让好看的字体变得更好看。
It was beautiful, historical, artistically subtle in a way that science can't capture, and I found it fascinating.
它很美、有悠久历史、精妙的艺术感，为科学所无法企及，我对它着迷了。
None of this had even a hope of any practical application in my life.
这些对于我的生活毫无任何实际的用途，我也从没指望。
But ten years later, when we were designing the first Macintosh computer, it all came back to me.
但是在10年后，当我们正在设计第一台 Macintosh 的时候，这些又回到了我的脑海里。
And we designed it all into the Mac.
并且我们把这些都注入到了 Mac 中去。
It was the first computer with beautiful typography.
那是第一台拥有着美丽字体的计算机。
If I had never dropped in on that single course in college, the Mac would have never had multiple typefaces or proportionally spaced fonts.
假如我当年没有旁听这门课程，Mac 也许就不会有那么多种不同的字体以及字符按比例间隔的字形。
And since Windows just copied the Mac, its likely that no personal computer would have them.
而且要不是 Windows 照抄了 Mac 的设计，也许今天的个人电脑就不会拥有这些了。
If I had never dropped out, I would have never dropped in on this calligraphy class, and personal computers might not have the wonderful typography that they do.
假如我当年没退学，也许我就不会旁听者们书法课了，也许个人电脑就不会有那么好看的字体了。
Of course it was impossible to connect the dots looking forward when I was in college.
当然，在学校的时候我不可能预见到这些点滴事件之间的联系。
But it was very, very clear looking backwards ten years later.
但是，10年之后再看过去，这种联系非常非常清楚。
Again, you can't connect the dots looking forward, you can only connect them looking backwards.
再说一遍，你没法预知你人生的点点滴滴之间会有怎样的联系，你只能在事后把它们串接起来。
So you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future.
因此，你必须相信，这些人生的片段会在你的未来产生联系。
You have to trust in something, your gut, destiny, life, karma, whatever.
你必须相信点什么，你的勇气、命运、生活、因缘，什么都可以。
Because believing that the dots will connect down the road will give you the confidence to follow your heart, even when it leads you off the well-worn path, and that will make all the difference.
因为相信那些片段会在之后的人生之路上给你以发自内心的自信，甚至引导你走出颓废，那将改变一切。
